Acronis believes cloud storage to be key

On the heels of the cloud’s widespread adoption in 2012, 2013 will be the year in which the cloud’s storage capabilities are truly leveraged for enterprise mobility and data accessibility.

And, with IDC claiming that combined spending for public and private cloud storage will reach US$22.6 billion worldwide by 2015, Acronis predicts cloud storage will play an integral role in IT strategies in 2013.

The company believes organisations will use it to meet increasing demands for data availability, protect against security concerns of enterprise mobility, manage the explosion of data and see it as a strategic differentiator.

“Businesses will not be able to compete without hybrid cloud storage strategies,” says Andy Purvis, GM ANZ, Acronis.

“The need to create, store and access more data, from mobile and traditional computing devices, makes old storage and data protection solutions obsolete, inflexible and expensive.

"If IT departments don’t provide end users with this capability, end users will bypass IT and obtain it themselves.”

Traditionally, the cloud’s capabilities have been focused on server scalability, hardware optimisation and the portability of applications from one virtual server to another within the cloud fabric, but 2013 is the year the cloud will make an even greater business impact through its storage capabilities.

Storage costs have the ability to cripple an IT department’s budget. And, with businesses and consumers creating 2.5 quintillion bytes of data per day, it’s essential for organisations to find a cost-effective storage solution that can handle the volume, variety and velocity of growing data.

This means finding new approaches to ensure all needed data is backed up, accessible and available for business critical functions, while reducing storage costs.

In 2013, this will be achieved through hybrid cloud infrastructure that will seamlessly integrate on-premise and cloud environments, and by the use of new technologies to reduce the cost and increase the availability of data stored in the cloud.

The premiere cloud strategy of 2013 and beyond will also increasingly address the security concerns of the rising enterprise mobility trend.

A Harris Interactive survey found that 81 percent of employees use at least one personal device for business use, and it is likely that these employees are collaborating and accessing sensitive data outside the company network.

To expel security concerns, IT managers should take an holistic approach to the cloud in 2013, implementing comprehensive solutions that address the security and availability of data both inside and outside the traditional IT infrastructure.